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A Texas man and repeat sex offender who tried kidnapping an Ohio girl he met while playing a Call of Duty game will be spending the next 20 to 30 years behind the bars of a federal prison after pleading guilty to a slew of exploitation charges.
Harrison Michael Barton, 38, who lives in Detroit, Texas, accepted a plea deal from federal prosecutors on Thursday, February 5.
Barton, as part of his plea, acknowledged that he had traveled from Texas to Ohio to sexually assault the victim, who was just 15 at the time.
Barton was arrested by federal authorities in February 2025 at John Glenn Columbus International Airport in Ohio. According to investigators, he was stopped as he attempted to board a flight to Florida with the victim.
Us Weekly obtained court documents that detail how Barton traveled by Greyhound bus to Ohio to meet the 15-year-old, whom he’d initially encountered while using the Call of Duty: Mobile game.
A press release issued by the United States Attorney’s Office Southern District of Ohio states that Barton pleaded guilty “to exploitation crimes after traveling to Ohio to have sex with a minor he met online.”
Specifically, Barton pleaded guilty to single counts of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, sexual exploitation of a minor, attempted kidnapping of a minor and possession of child sexual abuse content.
Barton was initially arrested on an outstanding parole warrant out of Texas stemming from a prior conviction of online solicitation of a minor, for which he had been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In this most recent case, Barton admitted that the teen victim picked him up from a bus stop in Newcomerstown, Ohio. “Prior to arriving at the airport, the defendant admitted to having vaginal and oral sex with the minor and to taking sexually explicit pictures of the victim,” reads the statement from federal prosecutors. It was unclear when Barton would be sentenced.
The guilty plea was announced by officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio, the FBI Cincinnati Division and multiple Ohio law enforcement agencies. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emily Czerniejewski and Jennifer M. Rausch.
The investigation was conducted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative focused on identifying victims, apprehending offenders and combating the sexual exploitation of children through coordinated federal, state and local efforts, officials said.
If you know of a young person who is being exploited or are the victim of a crime, you are urged to report it to your local FBI field office by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI. Tips can also be left at tips.fbi.gov
Parents, teachers, and guardians interested in learning more about protecting children from exploitation can find useful tools and information at Know2Protect.
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